A pained look crossed his face, and he looked at me for a moment as though he wanted to say something to me. Apparently, he changed his mind.
“You could say that I am rather partial to bears,” he said.
We went back inside and had breakfast. I could tell that something was bothering him. He was quiet, and only grunted a couple of times. If I said or asked something, he replied with one-word answers.
Finally, I said, “The ducks pooped on the bed last night, and it got really messy.”
“Mm-hm.” Then, after a second, he said, “Wait, what?”
“Nothing, ” I sighed heavily and turned back to my breakfast. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry. I scraped my food off into the trash and rinsed my plate. I figured I would wash dishes later.
Gage came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry. I guess I just have a lot on my mind,” he said.
I turned around. “We are married. You are supposed to share your thoughts and feelings with me. That’s what I’m here for.”
“I know,” he answered. “We’ll talk soon, I promise.”
He kissed me on the forehead. “I have some business I need to take care of. I’ll be home later.”
Gage started to walk out the door, and then he turned around and looked at me. “You know that I love you, don’t you?”
I looked at him for a moment. Marriage, sex, love, all in the matter of a couple of days. I told him, “Trust is part of love. Cupid told Psyche in the Greek myth that love cannot live where there is no trust.”
“I know,” he said, that same pained look crossing his face again. “I do trust you. We’ll talk very soon.”
I nodded and smiled at him. “And I do love you. Actually, what I feel for you is greater than the concept and the words of love. I can’t find the words to express how I feel.”
He caressed my cheek with the back of his hand and said, “I understand exactly what you are saying. I will see you tonight. Be safe.”
“You too,” I said to the empty doorway.
I watched him leave and then sat down on the couch, staring out the window.
Gage started to act differently after I found the bear tracks outside of my house. When Amon referred to the family secret, he said it was a bear of a secret. What kind of family secret could he possibly have about bears? Patience was not one of my virtues, but I guessed I was going to have to suffer until Gage finally decided to talk to me about what was going on.
8
Gage
Ineeded to get out of the cabin for a while and away from Luka so that I could think. My thinking and judgment were clouded when she was around. All I could focus on was my feelings for her.
She was absolutely right. Love couldn’t exist without trust. She couldn’t fully love me if I didn’t trust her and she couldn’t trust me. Right now, both were an issue. I wasn’t trusting her with my true identity, and she couldn’t trust me because I was hiding secrets from her. By not trusting her, I also corrupted the idea of true love.
I was making a mess out of everything. I had the perfect opportunity to tell her everything this morning. Her reaction to the bear tracks proved to me that me being a bear shifter was not going to make her love me any less.
However, instead of saying, “I’m glad you love bears so much because guess what? Ta-da! I’m a bear shifter—half-bear, half-human,” I chickened out.
Luka wasn’t a stupid woman. She had to be figuring out that there was something going on because of what Amon said and because of my reaction to seeing the bear prints in the ground.
I really hated the look on her face when I left. She was hurt and confused by my actions, and she knew I was hiding something from her. I owed it to her to tell her the truth. One way or the other, before the day was over, I would tell her that I was a bear shifter. Even if she was shocked by the revelation, I was certain that, in the end, she would still love me.
The bear tracks were an issue for a different reason, as well. Amon or one of his buddies must have been stalking Luka. It wouldn’t be for a good reason. Amon was up to no good.
I wouldn’t be able to survive if something happened to Luka. She was a part of me. She was a part of my soul.
My buddies and I met at a restaurant. We all had served in the military under one branch or the other, and we were all special ops. In addition, we were all shifters. That would make us a pretty elite security group.
On the surface, we decided that we would be just that—a security group. We would provide high-end cybersecurity for businesses that were at risk of being breached by other businesses, hackers, or governments. We would also train an elite group of armed and unarmed security officers that we would contract out to the different companies.